Thyberthonieth
by Scyphi
Summary: When the Doctor and his companion Rainbow Dash land the TARDIS in the basement of the Canterlot royal castle, they discover that a whole bunch of robotic-like ponies the Doctor calls "Cyberponies" are hiding there, and seem to be up to something nefarious. But are the Cyberponies really what they seem? Please R&R!


"Thyberthonieth"

One moment the room was both dark and empty. It had been that way for quite a while, in fact. But then during the next moment, a light began to flash from seemingly nowhere, and with a loud noise that accompanied it, the room was suddenly no longer so dark and empty. Now a tall object sat in the room, having just appeared there out of nowhere, fading into existence from seemingly nothing. It sat there for a few moments, leaving an intimidating presence in the room, even though it did nothing further after that.

Then finally, the object opened, and a stallion stepped out.

"Hullo world! What have you to show us this—oh."

He stopped and looked blankly into the dark room, as if it was not what he was expecting to see. He is soon joined by a mare, who glances around as well.

"I can't see anything," she quipped teasingly. "It's too dark."

"Easily remedied!" the stallion assured her, recovering quickly. "We just need to find a light switch."

The mare was looking around at the room's dimly lit roof skeptically. "And some lights, apparently. It doesn't look like this room has any."

"Now how can you be sure if it's too dark to see?"

"My _real_ point, Doc, is _should_ it be too dark to see like this?"

The stallion hesitated. "Well…I wasn't expecting it to be, no, _but_…"

"Uh-huh, that's what I thought," the mare interrupted, grinning knowingly. "So…where are we this time?"

The stallion glanced around again. "Uh, Canterlot, in the basement of the royal castle, it would seem," he deduced with precision.

"Whoa, no way! We're in the _royal castle_?"

"Now don't be too excited, Miss Dash, it _is_ the royal castle, after all."

"True, true, and I _promise_ I'll keep my excitement contained this time."

"That was what you said when we went to the cloud islands of Terretrip."

"…that was different."

"Mm-hmm."

"So…um…_when _are we?"

"Oh, not too terribly far from home for you, relatively speaking. This _should_ be just a few months after the Grand Galloping Gala."

"Which Grand Galloping Gala?"

"You already _know_ which Grand Galloping Gala."

"Oh. _That_ Grand Galloping Gala."

There was a moment of silence as they exchanged looks.

"Technically, that wasn't my fault."

"I didn't say it was, Miss Dash."

"I had a lot of help messing up that gala, you know!"

"I didn't say anything to the contrary!"

Another moment of silence.

"So why _this_ time, anyway?" the mare asked finally, changing the subject.

"Why not?" the stallion replied.

"Because I _lived_ during this time, so I've already seen it."

"Ah, but you'd be surprised how many interesting things you can still miss. Always nice to get a second chance to look around. Furthermore, unless you or I were at the royal castle on this particular day, we'll both be staying outside our own personal timelines. No _real_ danger of accidentally meeting ourselves and creating a paradox or something of the sort."

"Why, what happens in a paradox?"

"_Anyway_," the stallion changed the subject by quickly urging the mare out of the object and into the dark room, "Enough chit-chat, let's get a move on." But then he suddenly paused, as if realizing he had forgotten something. "Oh, wait, wait, I have to go get something real quick! Be just a tick!"

He retreated back into the object so to retrieve something. The mare stuck her head in after him, already knowing what he was getting.

"Oh c'mon, Doc, do you _have_ to have that? I can't understand you when you try to talk with it in your mouth, you know!"

"Miss Dash, perish the thought! How can you expect me to go _anywhere_ without my trusty sonic? Besides, how _else_ do you expect me to carry it when I don't have any pockets?"

"I'll _tell_ you how to carry it, you can just—"

She was interrupted suddenly with a loud thump somewhere off in the distance. Startled, she glanced warily in the direction of the sound. She didn't immediately see anything out of the ordinary, but in the darkness of the room, it was hard to be sure.

"Doc…" she called warily back into the object.

"Don'th worry, I'mfh thure it wath juthfh thomethony drthopping thomefhing heaffy!" the stallion replied, exiting the object again, now carrying a small item in his mouth.

"_What_?" the mare asked, annoyed.

The stallion spat the object into his hoof for a moment. "I said, don't worry! I'm sure it was just somepony dropping something heavy."

The mare looked uncertain still, but she didn't argue. "Well…if you say so."

"I _do_ say so!" the stallion closed the door to the object before cheerily popping the device back into his mouth to carry. "Now getfh a movfh on! Fhings to thee and all!"

They proceeded onward at a light trot, looking around as they did.

"It would be easier to do that if it wasn't so dark in here," the mare remarked after a moment.

The stallion glanced around with a puzzled frown. "Fhwhy the devfhil _ith_ it tho dark in here?"

Suddenly a brilliant spotlight switched on and shined brightly down on them from somewhere above them, nearly blinding them. They both moved to shield their eyes with one hoof, coming to a dead halt.

"Ah!" the mare protested.

It was then that a loud clanging noise rang out from all around in the room that was rapidly growing closer. The stallion froze at the sound, a chill going down his spine in alarm.

"Uh-oh!" He exclaimed. "Thyberthonieth!"

The mare shot him a questioning glance. "What?"

The stallion turned to her. "Thyberthonieth," he calmly, almost brightly, repeated.

"Can't understand you with your sonic screwdriver in your mouth, Doc."

"I thaid _Thyberthonieth!_"

The mare frowned, as she strained her ears to listen, not helped by the increasing volume of the clanging. "Cyberponies?" she repeated, believing she had heard correctly, but still not knowing what that meant. "What the _hay_ are Cyberponies?"

The clanging then suddenly stopped, leading the two ponies to turn their attention away from each other and out at the room around them. Only now they were surrounded on all sides by what looked like robotic ponies with curiously shaped heads.

"Delete!" they all chorused menacingly at the two. "Delete! Delete! Delete!"

"Whoa!" the mare exclaimed in alarm, quickly taking on a defensive position as she flared out her sky blue wings, knocking her rainbow-colored mane from her eyes so to see the threat clearly.

The brown stallion with the hourglass cutie mark, however, merely sighed as he gazed worriedly at the metallic equines, noting that their path back to the blue box they had arrived in had been cut off. "Thoth are Thyberthonieth," he muttered around the sonic screwdriver in his mouth.

* * *

There were times when Rainbow Dash wondered still if everything she was experiencing was even real, and was actually part of some extremely lucid, detailed, and focused dream. In fact, before this all started, she would've mocked the idea of this very sort of situation, believing it as nothing more than fiction and thereby impossible.

And then the Doctor showed up in that blue box he called his "TARDIS."

From there Rainbow found herself pulled into a crazy, seemingly non-stop, adventure by the Doctor's side as he worked to fight evil and save the day on a regular basis, tagging along with him as the Doctor used his TARDIS to literally travel through time and space. This meant that if Rainbow had wanted to go back in time to see the founding of the Wonderbolts in Canterlot, nearly a century before she had been born, the Doctor could do it. And already had done it upon request, as it happened.

It was all so wonderfully much that Rainbow at times also wondered how, exactly, she gotten lucky enough to get mixed up in such a wonderful adventure as this in the first place. She had never really stopped to think about the enormity of what it was she was doing when she first tagged along, traveling through time and exploring the universe in ways no pony in Equestria could, why she was doing it, or even why she had allowed the Doctor to talk her into doing it. She just jumped at the chance to join him when the Doctor, rather out of the blue, offered her the chance after their first (and eventful) meeting and despite barely knowing him at the time, had been loyally following him without question ever since.

Even now, she still only barely knew the brown stallion. She didn't even know any other name for him save "the Doctor," which, if the strange stallion's claims were to be believed, really was the only name he had. Rainbow had assumed this meant he had either really strange parents, or the Doctor really did have a _real_ name of some sort…he just didn't want to share it with other ponies for some reason.

She also knew that the Doctor was, for all intents and purposes, alien. He made this abundantly clear from the moment they first met, but he attempted to hide just how "alien" he actually was for as long as he could. It wasn't until Rainbow realized that he didn't know a thing about Equestria or pony culture despite trying to act like he did that she got him to confess that he wasn't "actually from your universe," as he put it. He also stated that he wasn't actually "a pony," indicating that he had once looked like something "entirely different" (which he never elaborated on) and that all of this happened by means of "an accident." But Rainbow didn't understand what any of that meant per say, and the Doctor never really bothered to try and explain it to her, leaving more about the Doctor blank to her than what would perhaps seem wise to anypony else.

Yet Rainbow trusted the stallion pretty much completely. It was hard for her to explain why, but Rainbow knew she could generally determine if a pony is trustworthy and would be worth giving her support to after she had been around them for a while. The Doctor commented once that she knew "loyalty backwards and forwards," and of course he had made this comment just before Rainbow became the Element of Loyalty and before she even knew such a thing existed (but such was the nature of the Doctor and his time traveling ways). So, even though Rainbow had seemingly little to go off of, she knew the Doctor to be a good pony, with good intentions, and was, frankly, amazing in more ways than one. She trusted him with her life.

Which was a good thing, because both of their lives were currently on the line at the moment.

Rainbow glanced back down the basement stairs they were racing up, the Doctor galloping up them two steps at a time while the rainbow-maned pegasi flew along beside him. "Think we can outrun them?" she asked, hearing the still-distant but worrying clanging and stomping of the metallic ponies as they pursued the two.

The Doctor tilted his head and made a wince. "Noth freally, ith…"

"DOC! Loose the screwdriver! I can't hear you talk!"

"Howth elthe dof you ethpect me toth carryf it buth in muh mouthf?"

"Oh for crying out loud!" Rainbow stopped the Doctor for a moment, removed the sonic screwdriver from his mouth, and then tucked it behind his ear. "There!"

The Doctor blinked, impressed. "Aw…now why hadn't _I_ ever thought of that?"

"Doc, focus," Rainbow said, urging him to start running again. "Metal robot ponies, can we outrun them?"

"Oh, uh, not really, no, not forever at least," he admitted as they continued fleeing. "Cyberponies are usually relentless in eliminating what they would consider to be a threat."

"So now what?"

"I'm working on that! But for the moment, _run!_" The time traveler glanced somewhat enviously at Rainbow's wings. "Or in your case, fly."

Rainbow noticed the hint of envy and beamed a little with pride, before turning her attention back to the matter at hoof. It was an undeniably a dangerous situation, and possibly somewhat grave if they didn't figure out a way out of this mess soon, but Rainbow had gotten oddly used to this by now. Oh, it still worried her, and, though she would never admit it, scared her, but this sort of thing was routine when you were with the Doctor. Eventually you just came to expect this as just a part of a normal day in the life of the Doctor and his companion, that things would be intense, suspenseful, dangerous, amazing…and that you'll get a _whole_ lot of exercise doing it.

"If we _do _escape these cyber-things…" Rainbow began.

"Cyberponies," The Doctor offered, puffing along as he continued to gallop up the stairs beside her.

"Cyberponies, right…will they leave everypony else alone?"

"Well, put simply…no. It'd take a miracle for them to decide to just keep to themselves like what you're hoping for, Miss Dash. If they really intended to leave the pony race alone, then they wouldn't _be_ here at all."

"It was a _miracle_ we even got out of that room of them back there at all then." But the mare was unfazed by that, as it wasn't the first time they had been in such a situation. "Although, that was some good thinking with the sonic there, Doc."

"Thank you, Miss Dash, though your theatrics with your flying certainly helped draw their fire long enough. I especially liked that double barrel roll you did."

"Which time? The one right when I tried to tackle them?"

"No, no, it was just after I dropped that load of boxes on the whole bunch."

"Load of boxes…was that before or after the explosion?"

"After, I think."

"Ah, I remember now. Thanks for the compliment Doc."

"You're welcome, Miss Dash."

Definitely a normal day in the life of the Doctor and his companion.

They continued on up the spiral stairs, searching for any avenue of escape. Rainbow was progressing along just fine and with little effort, but the continued work of trying to clamber up the stairs for so long was starting to wear on the Doctor.

"Do these stairs _ever_ end?" he protested, breathing heavily and starting to lag behind a little, but was still keeping himself right behind Rainbow nonetheless. "Honestly, if you're going to have this many stairs in a row, why not include a blooming _elevator_?"

"Oh hush, we're almost there!" Rainbow said, pointing with one hoof at the door that was finally coming into view. "I think that leads into the main portion of the castle! If so, then we can go and fetch some of the royal guards to help us!"

"That's assuming the Cyberponies don't just mow them over," the Doctor replied with some skepticism, glancing back down the stairs, listening for their robotic pursuers. They had fallen back considerably to the point that even their infernal stomping was hard to hear, but there was no doubt in his mind that they were still chasing after them, and would eventually track them down again. "Still, if they're willing, I'll take what help we can get!"

So with that thought in mind, Rainbow burst through the doors and into the castle corridor beyond, expecting there to be a number of royal guards stationed there already. But instead, the corridor was completely empty and silent. Puzzled, she quickly flew to either end of the corridor, where it turned to join with another corridor, and looked down both of those corridors only to find more of the same.

"There isn't anypony here!" she cried back to the Doctor with some dismay.

"Then there's nopony in the way to get hurt!" the Doctor pointed out in response without losing a beat as he turned to close the doors they had just come through again. He hoped to lock it too, but was dismayed to see that these doors had no such lock of any sort. "Just keep going, and look for someplace we can go to figure out our next move!"

"Got it!" Rainbow said, and flew on, picking a corridor at random and hurrying on down it.

She quickly stopped and came back, though, when she noticed that the Doctor had fallen behind. "Doctor!" she called once she had found the brown stallion, which was running after her, just not fast enough to keep up. "Doctor! C'mon, they're coming after us!"

"I'm well aware of that, thank you!" the Doctor snapped. "_So why did you stop running_?"

"Because you fell behind!"

"I was still right behind you! And anyway, you _know_ you can go several times faster than I can, Miss Dash!"

"I'm sure as _hay_ not going to leave you behind, though!" Rainbow insisted once the Doctor had caught up with her, and started to follow him, keeping close.

The Doctor rolled his eyes a little, both annoyed and flattered at Rainbow's protective loyalty for him. "It won't matter if we don't find someplace to hide long enough to figure out what to do!" he pointed out.

"There!" Rainbow said suddenly, pointing a hoof at the first door they came across. "Let's try that door!"

They both made for the door, bursting it open under their combined weight, and the two ponies skidded unbidden into the room at breakneck speeds. No sooner had they entered, though, they promptly spun around and used their forehooves to close the door behind them. Holding them closed, the Doctor then took out the sonic screwdriver and waved it over the latch for the door, the device making a light buzzing noise as it did so. The lock suddenly clicked shut.

"Will that stop them?" Rainbow asked, panting.

"Once they get up here? Maybe for a few minutes at best," the stallion replied, just as breathless. "More likely less. But consider that extra time to come up with a plan."

"It's not going to take them long to find us here, though, will it, Doc?"

"No, probably not, but don't think about that. Think about things that could help us out of here."

"Okay." The mare thought for a moment. "Where _is_ here, anyway?"

The two ponies fell silent. They exchanged glances at each other, and then turned around and looked for the first time behind them at the room they now found themselves in. It proved to be a small bedroom with an attached bathroom and closet, and a window that looked out at Canterlot at night. Like the corridors they had just left, it was void of any occupants but themselves.

"Looks like somepony's bedroom," Rainbow remarked aloud, stating what was already perfectly clear, then grinned a little. "Good thing the owner ain't here, or they would've been in for a rude awakening!"

"I doubt they would have been in here asleep at this hour, Miss Dash, for the room clearly belongs to a member of the Night Guard," the Doctor corrected, pointing a hoof where a set of spare armor hung on a mannequin, bearing the unique design of the Night Guard. "A mare too, if I'm not mistaken."

Rainbow blushed a little at missing this detail. "Oh." Then she blinked. "But that would mean she, and the rest of the Night Guard, are out on patrol."

"Correct," the Doctor replied, examining the room for anything of use.

"Then…where are they?"

The Doctor paused, and frowned. "We'll worry about that later," he said, quite clearly shirking the subject. "Now, normally I would recommend against barging into one's private bedchambers like this, but tonight I think we have good reason, seeing we're being chased by Cyberponies." He resumed his examination of the room, but then his train of thought took him to other subjects. "Well, to be honest, I knew them as Cyber_men_, but they're clearly pony shaped here, so I just tweaked the name appropriately." The Doctor frowned. "It's not one of my best though, is it? Although it's not like I had much forewarning…I didn't even know you _had_ Cyberponies in this universe until now…"

"What _are_ Cyberponies anyway, Doc?" Rainbow asked, strolling up to join him.

"Oh, well, assuming they aren't different in some way from Cybermen, which given the strong resemblance, I'd highly doubt it, they're robotic fellows that are bound and determined to take ordinary biological beings, in this case ponies, and turn them into robots like themselves," the Doctor explained quickly. "And they can be rather…_insistent_ about it, shall we say?"

"_How_ insistent, Doctor?" Rainbow inquired seriously.

"Like they'll eliminate anypony that won't cooperate to their methods?" the Doctor replied tentatively, knowing from past experience how ponies in Equestria responded to such violence, disused to it as they typically were.

Rainbow groaned. "Why does it always have to come back to life-and-death stuff?"

"I know, wonderful, isn't it?" the Doctor remarked cheerily.

Rainbow ignored the comment. "So how did they get in Equestria, then?" she asked.

The Doctor only shrugged. "Search me," the earth pony remarked. "I just know that there are a whole lot of them in the castle's basement for some reason, and that something needs to be done about them. But first things first, we need to take care of the lot that are chasing us."

Any further conversation was cut short when a distinct clanging sound was heard coming their way.

"And speak of the devil!" the Doctor proclaimed, turning to the door. He grinned as he looked back at Rainbow. "But don't worry! I've got a plan!"

"Right, what do you need, Doc?" Rainbow asked quickly, ready to act.

"Okay, I'm going to need a long wooden board…"

"On it!" The blue mare hurried off to begin dumping books off a bookcase. "Sorry to whomever owns this, but we need this shelf!" she explained aloud as she yanked the now-empty shelf from its spot.

"Also need a banana peel," the Doctor said, spying a banana in a bowl of fruit before grabbing it, peeling it, and dismissively chucking the fruit within aside, keeping the peel. "And four or five boxes, something we can stack together."

Rainbow quickly started gathering anything in the room that was even remotely box-shaped and started pushing them over towards the bedchamber door.

"And some nails…ah!" the Doctor took his sonic screwdriver and began using it to remove nails from the frame of the bed. "Mifhth Dathh, thee if youfh can thind a hairfth curlfer!"

"What?" Rainbow shouted from across the room.

The bed suddenly thudded loudly to the floor as one of its legs gave way, weakened by the Doctor's removal of the nails from it. He spat out his sonic screwdriver. "Find a hair curler!" he repeated.

Rainbow dashed into the adjoining bathroom and began tearing it apart. "Does this pony even _have_ a hair curler? Because I'm not finding any…oh wait, will a hair _blower_ work, Doc?"

"Uh…yes, yes, toss it here!" the Doctor said urgently.

Rainbow tossed it to the Time Lord, who snagged it and promptly began to dismantle it, so to get at the mechanisms inside. "Now see if you can find me a _whole_ lot of glue!" he urged while he worked.

"Glue! Got it!" Rainbow zoomed off to find the requested item.

Meanwhile, something started to thump loudly at the locked door leading into the bedroom, announcing that the Cyberponies had arrived and were attempting to gain entrance. Immediately, the door began to weaken, and it was nothing but miraculous that it withstood the Cyberponies at all, much less this long.

Meanwhile, Rainbow had gone to the room's desk, swiping everything on top of it to the floor but not finding what she was looking for. She started pulling out the desk's drawers and throwing things out of them recklessly. "I'm not finding any glue!"

"Tape, then!" the Doctor relented, his hooves full with hair blower parts. "I can use tape! Maybe!"

"Tape!" Rainbow exclaimed, bringing a roll of tape over to where the Doctor worked.

"Good, now one more thing!" the Doctor said, taking the tape and pulling out a really long strand of tape from the dispenser. "I need something really heavy, but not so heavy that we can't move it…like a bowling ball!"

"Okay, something heavy, something heavy…" Rainbow muttered to herself as she looked around the now-ruined bedroom. She spied a stone bust of Princess Luna's head sitting on top of the bookcase. "Ah ha!" she quickly flew up and roughly yanked the bust from off the bookcase with both hooves, knocking down a number of other things in the process. Straining to hold onto the heavy granite bust, she brought it to the stallion that had, by now, made a curious contraption in front of the door with items from around the bedroom. "Here!"

"Excellent!" the Doctor said, glancing in approval at the bust. "Now hold it over here, and don't drop it until I say!" he motioned at a button he had built into the object.

Rainbow grunted as she moved the bust to hover over the button. "Are you sure this is going to work, Doc?" she asked.

"Oh, absolutely, just so long as that door holds for just another second," the Doctor stated confidently, jabbing a hoof at the door, the thumping against them continuing, while he took his sonic screwdriver and carefully slipped it into a slot on the contraption.

He did so not a moment too soon, because literally seconds afterwards the lock broke, the door swung open, and the Cyberponies mechanically entered. Rainbow felt a chill run down her spine at the sight of the familiar pony shape in something so cold, metallic, and merciless. But she quickly cast those thoughts from her mind and on the threat at hoof.

"Delete!" the Cyberponies exclaimed, moving to attack. "Delete! Del—"

"NOW!" the Doctor interrupted loudly, pointing a hoof at Rainbow.

Relieved, Rainbow let the heavy bust fall from her hooves and onto the button with a crack. The contraption immediately shuddered, groaned, and then the sonic screwdriver kicked in, its whine building rapidly in volume until it created a massive burst of energy that caught the Cyberponies and blew them backwards, back out the door and hard into the opposite wall in the hallway beyond. The robotic ponies then collapsed into heaps, sparking violently for a few moments before they were finally still, and moved no more.

The contraption then sparked violently itself and fell quiet, a moment of silence following.

"It worked," Rainbow breathed, grinning somewhat in relief once it was clear the Cyberponies were not getting back up again.

"Well of course it worked!" the Doctor exclaimed in protest at this sign of doubt. "_Blimey!_ You'd think I'd have proven myself capable enough to deliver by now. Although, I will grant that if I was a unicorn, and had access to all of that magical power in those wonderful horns of theirs, it probably would've been much easier to create the same effect on demand. I mean, you can't knock unicorn magic, can you?" he sighed wistfully. "Next regeneration, _I_ want to be a unicorn. And ginger. Unicorn and ginger. If I can be both of those things _just once_, all will be right with the world."

Rainbow laughed a little, having lost the Doctor in his little rant, but still found his energy to be infectious. "Well either way, Doc, you really sent those Cyber-whatevers for a loop!" she remarked appraisingly, strolling up beside him. But then her eyes widened as she realized something and she shot the Doctor a worried glance. "But didn't you say those things actually flesh and blood ponies?"

The stallion hesitated then sighed in response. "If the Cyberponies got to them and did what I suspect they did, then they're no longer ponies," he said gravely, gazing over the sight of the wreaked robots.

"Then…you're saying that they were pretty much…"

"Already dead, yes, I'm afraid so."

Rainbow winced, gazing back at the wrecked Cyberponies with more guilt and dread now. "Doesn't mean that I like it," she grumbled darkly.

"Nor do I, but even I have to admit that in this instance…" the Doctor suddenly trailed off, his eyes suddenly narrowing suspiciously at the Cyberpony wreckage. "Wait a minute..._wait a minute_…WAIT JUST ONE ACCURSED MINUTE!"

He yanked his sonic screwdriver from the now-broken contraption and galloped over to one of the fallen Cyberponies, waving the device rapidly over it several times before spitting it back out of his mouth. "HA!" he exclaimed victoriously. "These are not Cyberponies!"

"What?" Rainbow remarked, as she joined him. "But you said—"

"Forget what I said, because I was wrong, so completely and utterly and wonderfully _wrong_!" the Doctor interrupted gladly. "They might _look_ and _act_ like Cyberponies, but they _aren't_ the Cyberponies _I'm_ familiar with." He paused. "Sort of. Technically this is the first time I've even encountered Cyberponies _per say_…but you know what I mean! And what I'm saying _now_ is that they're all cyber and no pony!"

"What are you talking about, Doc?" Rainbow asked, looking lost.

"Remember when I told you that Cyberponies take other living things and turn them into robots like themselves? Well, the process isn't complete and total. There should still be, at the very _least_, little bits and pieces of biological material. Y'know, flesh and stuff from whatever living thing that they converted."

Rainbow wrinkled her snout at the thought. "Ew."

"Completely. But that's just _it_, Miss Dash. _These_ Cyberponies have none of that! _They_ are all robot!" the Doctor grinned brightly. "All _we've_ done is knock around some bits of machinery and nothing more!"

Rainbow brightened at this for a moment, but it was quickly replaced with a confused frown. "Then…I don't understand. If they are not…_converting_…ponies like you describe…then what _do _they want?"

The Doctor frowned, trapping his chin with one hoof. "That _is_ a good question," he conceded. "If these Cyber-whatevers are in any way related to the Cybermen I know of…which given the similar appearance its more than likely…then why such a drastic change in tactics?"

"And how long have they been here?" Rainbow asked. "If they've been here in the castle's basement for a while, then…why are they only making themselves known _now_? I mean, yeah, we did just kind of appear in the same place where they're hiding, but they could've easily kept away and we wouldn't have ever known they were there in the first place. Instead, they come forward and attack, blowing their cover. Why? And…_where are the guards?_ Not meeting any in our dash to get here is one thing, but our actions just now created a whole lot of noise that should have brought several guards from all over the castle this spot, if not other ponies! And yet, you will note," she glanced up and down the relatively empty hallway, "we seem to be the only ones here."

"All very good questions," the Doctor agreed. "But of course, you know that this means there is only one place to find the answers."

Rainbow groaned. "We're going to have to go back down to the basement, aren't we?" she asked.

"Well, we were going to have to go back down there anyway, because that's where the TARDIS is," the Doctor pointed out. "And no matter what, these Cyber-whatevers still seem to be here for nefarious reasons, and I'm not about to just stand to one side and do nothing about them. And since the others are still downstairs in the basement, we're going to have to take the fight to them! So c'mon, then!" the Doctor proceeded on down the hallway. "Let's get a move on!"

Rainbow Dash couldn't help but grin a little to herself as she followed. "Galloping blindly into the matter as always, I see," she remarked aloud to the Doctor.

"Would you really have it any other way?" the Doctor challenged knowingly as they arrived at the staircase that led back down into the castle basement.

"Never," Rainbow responded confidently as they proceeded down the stairs. "Let's go kick metallic flank, Doc."

The Doctor just laughed at this and continued onward with Rainbow at her side as usual. They continued on down the stairs, leaving the main levels of the castle and down into towards the basement. It wasn't long before both were starting to get breathless again; making the lengthy trip through the staircase twice in so close succession was starting to catch up to them.

"Y'know," Rainbow suddenly remarked, "an elevator _would_ be kind of nice right about now."

The Doctor grinned at the comment. "Well, while I would agree, a little bit of running never harmed anypony," he pointed out. "Besides, it can't be helped most of the time! And, it gives me time to come up with brilliant save-the-day plans!"

"Speaking of which, I hope you've got a plan in mind for when we get back down there in the basement, Doc," Rainbow said.

"I do indeed, Miss Dash, and I think it's a brilliant plan! I just need to get a better idea of where it is these Cyberponies have been housing themselves."

It was not long before they arrived back at the basement and carefully proceeded down a short tunnel that would led into the room the TARDIS had arrived in. All was quiet, with not a Cyberpony in sight, but that didn't make the two ponies feel any more comfortable about it.

"Are you certain that…?" Rainbow began to remark aloud.

The Doctor quickly shushed her. "Whisper please!" he said quietly.

The pegasus lowered her voice and tried again. "Are you certain that there actually are more of these Cyberponies down here?" she asked in a whisper.

"I would bet on it, yes," the Doctor replied as he arrived at the door leading into the next room, and pressed himself cautiously to one side of it, motioning to his companion to do the same with one hoof. "Now, be alert, the TARDIS is right through this door. I'm going take a peak and see how things are in there."

He cautiously peeked around the edge of the door and into the next room. At first, all he saw was the empty expanse of the dark room, much like how the room had looked when they first arrived, but finally he spied the TARDIS, right where he'd left it and as unharmed as ever liked he hoped. However, four Cyberponies had taken positions up around it, guarding it.

"Ah," he muttered in a knowing tone, "They're guarding it."

"So now what, Doc?" Rainbow Dash asked. "Time for your brilliant plan to kick in."

"Well, we don't actually need the TARDIS at the moment," the Doctor responded. "And the Cyberponies can't get inside of it, so, assuming they don't try to do anything to destroy it, it should stay safe. So the only problem we have left, then, is getting past them because the only way on is in that room." He glanced behind the blue box and the robotic ponies at the doorway of another tunnel, leading deeper into the basement, where he presumed the Cyberponies had housed themselves. He continued to discreetly survey the room for a few more moments then pulled back from the door. "Fortunately, I was expecting the TARDIS to be guarded, and already have a solution that I think should work."

He pulled out the sonic screwdriver again and cautiously peered around the door again until he had it pointed at the TARDIS. He made sure it was indeed lined up correctly in his mouth, for he was likely only going to get the one chance at this, then activated the screwdriver quickly. It started to buzz with sonic energy. The Cyberpony guards immediately detected the device's emissions and turned their attention towards the source, gauging the situation. The Doctor knew that in just a matter of moments, they would try to attack. But he didn't need long.

"Fone…two…thfree," he murmured aloud to himself.

Right on cue, the light atop of the TARDIS started to flash and began to make its trademark noise, sounding like it was just about to depart. Alerted, the Cyberponies immediately turned their attention to the TARDIS, like they expected to do something to stop it.

Rainbow recognized the distinct whirring noise with a start. "Doc, what are you doing?" she asked urgently, worried the Time Lord was sending the TARDIS away.

"Shh," the Doctor assured the pegasus. "She's not actually going anywhere."

And indeed the craft wasn't. It continued to make the usual noise, but it had otherwise hadn't done anything to move or fade away from that moment in space-time. The Cyberponies continued to stare at it, beginning to move about, searching for a way to get it to stop. Suddenly, the TARDIS's whirring increased in pitch and continued to do so until it was near ear-shattering in height. The light flashed once more, then suddenly clicked on and swelled in brightness and held it there continually. The Cyberponies suddenly made a metallic yelping noise and crumpled, as if stunned.

"Now!" the Doctor said as he hurried into the room, his mare companions following suit, "Hurry, they'll only be stunned for a few moments at best!"

They galloped past the TARDIS and the stunned Cyberponies before quickly ducking into the corridor on the other side. Once they were safely there, they slowed their pace to a more careful trot and proceeded to follow it as it abruptly turned and headed deeper into the catacombs of the castle's basement.

"Miss Dash, if you could take the rear in case we are followed," the Doctor suggested.

Rainbow nodded, and turned around so she could see back up the corridor, wings flared out and at ready as she watched for any pursuing Cyberponies. None were coming, though. It seemed they had managed to slip past the TARDIS's guards without detection.

Eventually, the tunnel opened up to a metal catwalk running along the wall of a much larger room. The Doctor and Rainbow quickly ducked down and inched their way out onto the metallic bridge until they could have a good view of the whole room it overlooked.

"Whoa," Rainbow breathed, impressed.

The room contained a variety of what was clearly a curious hybrid of alien technology and the less advanced Equestrian technology, scattered about in jury-rigged clumps and arrangements as apparently needed for its users. In the middle, a monstrous column of this tech towered from floor to ceiling, lights occasionally pulsing on it at a steady rate. Roughly about half a dozen Cyberponies stomped about this room, carrying out various tasks. They had not been alerted to the ponies intruding on their territory, and seemed quite calm for the moment. The Doctor, however, was more interested in the column of technology in the middle.

"Well now, ith that what I thinkth it ith?" he asked, scanning it with his sonic screwdriver for a moment, then glanced at the read out. "It ith!"

"What is it?" Rainbow asked.

The Doctor removed the sonic screwdriver from his mouth so to explain. "That, Miss Dash, is a supercomputer," he said. "One big enough and powerful enough to support a sentient database entity and with enough memory to contained detailed information on easily a third of the galaxy. And I'm starting to think that _it's_ the mastermind of all of this, and is using these Cyberpony…_mock-ups_ as a cover."

"Cover for what?"

"I'll have to get to a terminal and access this thing's databanks to find out more," the stallion scanned the room for just such a terminal. "There," he said, pointing with one hoof. "That one seems out of the way enough. We just need to get to it."

"Let's hurry then," Rainbow urged, looking around the room warily. "This room is giving me the creeps."

A staircase leading down to the ground floor was nearby, so the Doctor led the way down it. Discreetly slipping from clump of machinery to machinery, the duo of ponies worked their way to the terminal while avoiding the Cyberponies wandering about. Fortunately, the Cyberponies continued to be oblivious to their presence.

"What's all this stuff do, anyway?" Rainbow inquired, fascinated by the technology.

"Most of it is data-processing technology, the rest seems to be scanning equipment, material fabricators, and the such," the Doctor replied, pressing on. "All of it is a bit beyond Equestrian standards. You ponies are really just beginning to drabble with technology in fact, so consider this a taste of its potential."

"Good or bad," his rainbow-maned companion added, glancing darkly at a Cyberpony in the distance.

"The thing that interests me the most about it, though?" the Doctor added, a knowing grin spreading on his face. "None of it is Cyberman tech, except the Cyberponies themselves."

"But it's clearly alien. So whose is it?"

"Let's find out, shall we?"

Upon arriving at the terminal in question, the Doctor waved his sonic screwdriver over it a few times to access the terminal and bringing up a wide variety of complicated data on its screen. It scrolled by too quickly for Rainbow to read, but for the Doctor, it wasn't scrolling by fast enough.

"C'mon, c'mon," he muttered aloud to himself.

A clanging sound rang out as a Cyberpony marched past, near the spot they were at. They quickly ducked down so to avoid being seen. The Cyberpony marched on without noticing them. Rainbow, however, was starting to get worried.

"Okay, past experience has told me that if our luck holds out for _this _long, it's about to all come crashing down at any second," she remarked with concern.

"Oh, you worry too much, Miss Dash," the Doctor remarked as he continued to scan the text on the screen. "Of _course_ things are going to come crashing down, it wouldn't be any fun if it—hullo, what's this?" His eyes squinted at what he was reading. "Oh, that's _very_ interesting indeed."

"What have you found, Doc?" the blue pegasus inquired.

"Well, first off, I was right about our database entity," the time lord explained, jabbing a brown hoof at the central tower of technology. "It's a self-reproducing cyber entity that seems to have developed naturally within this universe and that, under typical circumstances, would travel about the universe, absorbing information as it goes along."

"Meaning?"

"The closest comparison I can think of is a virus, except without any nefarious intentions save self-preservation," the Doctor elaborated. "And so long as nothing threatens it, I find it unlikely it'd cause any _deliberate_ harm."

"Then…why the Cyberponies?" Rainbow asked.

"I'm getting to that. Apparently, this entity typically moves around in a physical form of sorts, unless it has sufficient power to broadcast about the universe in the form of pure data. They apparently exist all about the universe and occasionally interact with each other. _This _one, however," the Doctor motioned again to the central column of technology, "got itself separated from its fellows and damaged, eventually arriving here on Equestria through means unknown. Don't know how long it's been here, but it's not really interested in Equestria, it's just looking for a way home."

"Now, as for the Cyberponies, that _there _is the interesting bit because, like I already suspected, they are indeed modeled on the Cybermen I'm familiar with from _my_ universe. This entity managed to get some information about them when I personally trapped some of those Cybermen in The Void, a, uh, kind of gap between universes. In the process, some random information about them must have escaped into _this_ universe, because this entity managed to absorb some of it, enough for it to make convincing replicas if so needed. And now that's its trapped here, it feels that need. It's been using the Cyberponies to protect itself from you ponies, or so I presume, and to serve as extensions of itself, so to carry out tasks it itself cannot do in this state."

"So…basically all it wants is to go home?" Rainbow asked.

The Doctor nodded. "And at this point, I can't really see any harm that it's caused," he remarked. "The Cyberponies are just to chase any threats, not to pick a fight. The reason we had all of those Cyberponies chasing after us when we arrived was because our sudden arrival frightened the entity, and it responded accordingly. Really, I don't think it means anypony any harm." He forced a grin. "I suppose I owe it an apology then, because for a few moments there, I seriously thought it was here for nefarious reasons. But no, it's really more like a lost and defenseless little kid, just trying to find a way home."

Rainbow sat and pondered this for a few moments.

"But…how does it _plan_ to go home?" Rainbow asked.

The Doctor paused, glancing back at the terminal's display. "Um, you know, I don't know," he admitted. "Not with the physical body it came here with, that was damaged beyond repair, and torn apart for parts to build all of _this_." He motioned at the contents of the room with his hooves. "I would assume then, given the manual labor it's created for itself, it intends to build itself a new means of getting about."

"And what about the missing guards, Doc?" Rainbow inquired. "They're still missing, and none of this explains where they got off to."

The Doctor frowned, considering that problem. "Hmm, that is, again, a good point," he confessed. "Where _are_ those pesky guards?"

"You don't think the entity has done something to them?" Rainbow asked. "Seeing that it apparently feels threatened by us ponies and all."

The Doctor hesitated. "I don't see _why_, honestly," he admitted finally. "The guards probably had no inkling that any of this was even down here, and seeing that this whole portion of the castle seems to have been left pretty much abandoned until this entity came along, nopony probably would've ever find out about this place anytime soon…unless somepony wandered down here for some reason. But that wouldn't account for the disappearance of _all _of them."

"Does the terminal thingy not say?" the mare asked, pointing a hoof at the terminal.

The Doctor glanced back at it. "No," he said, before looking around. "But there is still a way to check."

He fiddled with the settings on his sonic screwdriver for a few moments before popping it into his mouth to hold, activated it, and turned in a slow circle as he worked to scan the room. That done, he removed it again and examined the results. His eyebrows went up at what he discovered.

"I'm not sure if they're ponies," he confessed, "but there is cluster of something alive and warm over that way." He pointed with his hoof at a spot that sat somewhere just behind the entity's central tower. "So let's get a move on and check it out."

* * *

Grey Rille was feeling antsy.

As a member of the Night Guard, she'd normally be out on patrol by this hour. Out and about doing her assigned duty, and doing it proudly. And normally she wouldn't let much of anything ever stand in the way of her duty like this.

Then those freaky metal ponies showed up.

Nopony was entirely sure where they had come from, but earlier that same evening, while Rille was going about on her usual rounds, a fellow guard came galloping up, reporting there was some kind of commotion or attack taking place in the lower floors of the castle. Upon going to investigate, she found the guards trying to take on a party of metallic-coated ponies who were seemingly stunning ponies with some sort of energy attack every time they were allowed to touch. Rille, being the ranking officer there, took charge, sent a pony to send warning to everypony else in the castle, and joined the fight.

Unsuccessfully, too, because eventually she and everypony else that was present in said fight were systematically stunned and knocked out, only to wake back up here, somewhere underground and locked in two separate cages in this big room filled with more of the metal pony things. Worse still, they couldn't seem to figure out a way to escape, even with magic, and Rille quickly discovered that the pony she had sent to spread word of the attack had been captured too, before he could get word out to anypony else. So as far as she knew, nopony else even knew they were down here much less what had happened, and that worried her to no end.

Despite this, they found no way to escape their cages or a way to fight back, so until they did, they were all pretty much stuck here until something else happened. So Grey Rille was left with nothing to do. And she was borrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrred.

Tired of aimlessly pacing around the cage, trying to keep all of the other captured ponies calm, the unicorn sighed to herself and plopped down on the cold floor of the cage, staring aimlessly between the seemingly impenetrable bars of the cage and out at the unusual room beyond with the metal ponies wandering around in it, ignoring them for the moment. It was around then that she first became aware of the distant sound of hooves clacking against the floor of the cavernous room, coming cautiously towards them. She didn't think much of it at first, her mind focusing more on how to get out of this mess. But as the sound gradually drew closer, she realized there was more than one pony coming in their direction. This set off alarm bells in Rille's well-trained head, making her wonder if help had finally arrived, and if it would actually be enough, or were just more ponies about to be trapped as well. This was, of course, assuming that the ponies coming her way were fellow members of the Night Guard, but she couldn't think of any reason why it'd be anypony else.

And then, before Rille could even react, a rather ordinary looking brown stallion came stepping around one of the machines in the room, his eyes at first directed at a metal pony that was standing some distance away, unaware of the intruder. He then turned towards the cages, blinked in surprise at the sight of the occupants inside, then grinned brightly.

"Oh!" the stallion exclaimed, turning cheery. "Hullo!"

He was soon joined by a blue pegasus mare, who seemed more relieved to see them. "_There_ you all are!" she said pleased.

Rille just gaped at the pair, but the other imprisoned ponies in the two cages all started to murmur and whisper, gathering closer so to get a good look at the two ponies. Rille looked them over, attempting to determine who they were and who they belonged with, but judging from their attire, or rather the lack thereof, they seemed to be just ordinary common ponies who could've easily just walked in from off the streets of the castle, which, Rille realized, was a distinct possibility if the attacked castle floors had been left unguarded.

"But what _are_ you lot all doing down here anyway?" the stallion continued, looking puzzled as he surveyed the whole group. "Did you _all_ decide to be adventurous today and came exploring down here or something?"

Continued gaping was the only response he got from the imprisoned ponies, especially Rille, who was somewhat stunned by the off-the-wall comment.

"But look, they aren't all guards," the mare chimed in, oddly unfazed by all of this. "See, Doc? Some of them are servants." She pointed through the bars at the smattering of servants milling about in the cage, having been captured as well.

"Yes, and let me guess, they, like all of these guards, were all stationed at the bottom floors of the castle, closest to the entrance of this basement level," the stallion reasoned aloud.

Surprised at his accuracy, some of the servants nodded or gave other responses of confirmation.

"And, another guess, it was the mean-looking metal pony guys that brought you all down here, called Cyberponies, am I correct?" the stallion added.

More nodding, though this time it wasn't so surprising he guessed this to them.

But it was to the stallion. "But why?" he asked again, going up and down in front of the two cages, looking them all over. "What's so important about you lot? Did you do something to threaten the entity, or something?"

"_They_ attacked _us!_" one pony called out from within the cage, a little indignant at the suggestion that it could be something else.

"I got _that_," the stallion said, pulling out a curious looking metal rod and waved it back and forth in front of the ponies, producing a blue light and curious noise in the process. A number of the occupants in the cage followed the light curiously, wondering what he was doing. He then removed it from his mouth to examine. "But _why_?" he continued. "You aren't a threat. In fact, there doesn't seem to be _anything_ special about _any_ of you at all. You're all just perfectly ordinary ponies, no offense. Hmm…is there some pattern to all of this that I'm missing, or…?"

It was then Rille found her voice. "Who the _hay_ are you ponies!?" the unicorn demanded, overwhelmed by the nonsense he was spouting as she pushed her way to the front of the group in her cage.

"Oh of course, how rude of us!" the stallion said. "Some introductions, then. I'm the Doctor. And my companion here is Rainbow Dash."

"Yo," the mare greeted nonchalantly with the wave of her hoof.

Grey Rille studied the pair for a few moments. The brown stallion seemed completely new to her. But the rainbow-maned mare _did_ seem oddly familiar now that she thought about it, and now that she had a name to go with the face, the unicorn guard started to put two with two.

"Wait a minute," she said, pointing a hoof at the pegasus. "Rainbow Dash? As in…one of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony, Rainbow Dash?"

"You've heard of me, then!" Rainbow stated proudly, beginning to bask in the glow of her own ego. "Tell me, do you know—"

"No!" the stallion interrupted. He gently kicked Rainbow with one hoof. "None of that pesky egotism, Miss Dash, we don't have time for that, ANYWAY!" He turned back to Rille, approaching her. "Now you know who we are, so if I may ask, who are you?"

"Sub-Lieutenant Grey Rille, the ranking officer here," the unicorn responded slowly. "But…"

"Oh, so you'd be in command!" the Doctor exclaimed. "Hah, not exactly your proudest moment this, is it? Getting captured and all of that?"

"But…_hey!_" Rille complained, trying to get a word in edgewise, feeling more and more befuddled the longer these two ponies spoke.

"Anyway, a pleasure to make your acquaintance Grey Rille," the Doctor continued talking. "And now that we have the pleasantries out of the way, let's get down to business, and that…" he paused, quite clearly for dramatic effect. "…is to figure out why you're all in there."

"What?" Rille repeated questioningly, not the response she was expecting. "What about getting us _out of here_?" She rattled the bars of the cage for emphasis. There was some murmuring of agreement from the other ponies in the two cages as well.

"Oh, we'll get to that," the Doctor promised, waving a dismissive hoof in Rille's direction as he continued to examine the cages and their occupants, moving from Rille's cage to the one adjacent. "But first I need to know why the entity controlling the Cyberponies would go so far out of its way to capture all of you when you're not a threat, especially after it has spent so much time deliberately trying to _avoid_ detection by you ponies in the _first_ place."

"I don't care!" Rille exclaimed, who really did care less about all of that. "So I hereby _order_ you to get us out of these cages, before the metal ponies find you!"

"I'm cheerfully disobeying that order then!" the Doctor responded brightly and without a hint of hesitation.

Rille silently fumed at him, but realized she couldn't do anything more to make him carry out her orders.

"Hey, Doc?" Rainbow suddenly asked, standing at one corner of Rille's cage. She had been examining the wiring lining the outside of the cage until her attention was drawn back to the occupants within. "Did you notice? All of the occupants in _that_ cage are pegasi or earth ponies." She pointed a hoof at the farther of the two cages the Doctor was currently examining. "But all of the ponies in this cage are all unicorns only." She then pointed at Rille's cage.

The Doctor glanced between the two cages for a moment. "By golly, you're right, Miss Dash!" he exclaimed quickly. "That _has_ to be deliberate, something that sets the unicorns apart from everypony else."

"Also, what do you make of this wiring stuff?" Rainbow continued, putting on a hoof on the wires lining Rille's cage. "Because I notice _this_ cage has it, but the other doesn't."

"Well, let's see then," the Doctor responded, coming over to examine the wiring himself. The imprisoned ponies in the cages all moved to watch, curious to see where this was heading. The Doctor proceeded to poke and prod the wiring, his eyes traveling along the strands of wires to see where they all connected. "Well…if that connects to that…and that goes there…and that plugs into that, then…" he suddenly frowned. "Oh, that's bad. That's very bad indeed."

"Now what?" Rille demanded, losing patience with this pony.

But he ignored Rille and instead turned to Rainbow Dash. "Miss Dash, remember earlier when I was going on about how wonderful and powerful unicorn magic is?"

"Yeah," Rainbow responded slowly.

"Well, if you have enough of it, it's powerful enough to also power an interstellar spaceship."

"A spaceship? But…" Rainbow suddenly trailed off as she gazed at the unicorns in Rille's cage before he eyes widened in understanding. "Oh no! Doc, we can't let it do that! Because if it does, it'll…"

"I'm well aware of the situation, thank you," the Doctor interrupted seriously, glancing over at the occupants of the two cages, well aware that they were listening.

The idea that he could be hiding something from them stroked Rille the wrong way. "What?" she demanded. "What is it? Doctor, I demand that you _tell us_ everything about what's going on!"

The Doctor glanced at her for a moment with slightly narrowed eyes. "Well, since you _asked_, and not too _politely_ I might add, here it is in a nutshell." He jabbed a hoof at the central column of machinery that sat in the center of the room. "You see that there? That contains a self-reproducing cyber entity that exists naturally in your universe, and through some accident while traveling through outer space, it and the spaceship it was in came crashing down here to Equestria where it got itself trapped. It's now trying to figure out a way to get back out into space so to go home, but to do so, it's trying to build a new spaceship to replace the old one and since it's _obviously_ an intangible entity built on data and energy, it has a hard time doing that, so it created the metal ponies that attacked you, that I have since dubbed "Cyberponies" as they are extremely similar to a foe I encountered and fought in another universe, with the idea of using these Cyberponies to carry out the tasks it itself cannot do and to help it complete the task of building this new spaceship, now, any questions before I continue?"

The imprisoned ponies gaped at him for several moments in silence. A number looked blank and very lost.

"_What?_" Rille finally exclaimed, feeling totally lost now.

"Oh, but I'm not finished!" the Doctor continued, addressed Rille a little coldly. It was clear that he had not taken a liking to her by now. "In order to work for its purposes, this entity will need quite a bit of energy to power this ship in order to get back home, and it's discovered that you _unicorns_ are just filled to the _brim_ with magical energy, on average at least. It's stuck you all in that cage connected with all of this equipment because it's rigged it so that it'll be able to drain _all_ of that magical energy from your bodies on demand so to power its ship and to be able to leave."

He fell silent, but his words caused the occupants of the cages to begin to murmur in panic, especially in the Rille's cage where all the unicorns were contained.

"But forcefully draining magical energy from a unicorn like that is extremely harmful!" one of the lower-ranked unicorn guards called out from within Rille's cage. "To drain _all_ of it from us, would…"

"…kill you all, yes, I'm afraid so," the Doctor concluded darkly.

Rille's eyes widened in alarm as the panicked murmuring increased. "Doctor, given this new information, I have to insist that you get us all out of this cage, immediately!" she ordered.

"I can't do that, not yet," the Doctor replied firmly. "If I let you all out now, you'll just go on the warpath and cause more damage and harm to everybody against an desperate entity with more power and knowledge than any of you could hope to fight again, and _really_ only wants to go home, and I'm not going to let you lot blindly rob it of that chance. Besides," he motioned to the cages. "These cages are double-deadlocked, and obviously resistant to magic, otherwise you unicorns would have freed yourselves by now. The only thing that can _most reasonably_ get you out is the entity controlling all of this."

Rille scowled. "So you're just going to _stand_ there and let _innocent_ ponies die?" She demanded.

"Of course not, I'm not _about_ to let it come to that," the Doctor promised. "But I intend to do it a bit more peacefully, thank you very much. Some careful diplomatic chatting with our friend the entity should do the trick."

"Chatting? _Chatting?_" That was the last straw for Rille. "Are you completely_ mad?_"

"You know, I've been asked that before—" the Doctor began, sounding like he was ready to start telling a long and irrelevant story.

"Ahshshsh!" Rille shushed quickly. "You two come barging in here uninvited, both start spouting complete and utter nonsense, acting all high and mighty like you, _and you alone_, know best, and claim that we're being threatened by some made-up enemy that sounds like something from a storybook!" She put on her most intimidating faced and stared the stallion down. He remained unfazed. Rille continued undeterred, though. "So give me _one_ good reason why I shouldn't arrest the pair of you and throw your pathetic rumps in the dungeons?"

"Well, for one thing, you're still locked up in a cage that you can't get out of, so you can't _really_ arrest us at the moment," Rainbow remarked, speaking up unpromisingly, starting to dislike Rille's pushiness herself.

"For another, I really _do _know best, and know violence is not the solution to this problem, nor is my rump pathetic in any shape or form," the Doctor added.

"For a third thing, you really _ought_ to just trust the Doctor," Rainbow provided. "It's faster and easier that way. Believe me, I know."

"And finally," the Doctor continued seriously, "it's because we are currently your only hope of getting out of this alive. Because there is _no way_, no way at all, that you are going to be able to escape on your own now without ponies dying."

Rille hesitated for a moment, but continued to glare at him. "Look," she said, "I don't know _who_ you think you are, but I _do_ outrank you, and, Celestia forbid, if we _do_ get out of this alive, I _will_ see to it that you get put in the dungeons for the rest of your life once this is all over, _without hesitation_!"

"You'd have to keep me in those dungeons for a very, very, long time then," the Doctor said, "because I'm not like other ponies."

"Why's that?" one of the servant ponies in the cage asked out of sheer curiosity.

The Doctor paused for a moment. "Let's just say that I'm old enough that by the end of my natural days, I'll make Princess Celestia seem _young_," he stated finally.

Rille chose to ignore the impossibilities of that statement. "Look," she said again, "Just get us out of here. That's all I'm asking."

"I'll get you out of there soon enough, _just not now_," the Doctor said, turning to leave, motioning to Rainbow to follow. "I already explained why. I'm not going to repeat myself, so be quiet and let me do my thing!"

"Darn it Doctor!" Rille exclaimed, raising her voice at the Doctor as he turned her back on her. "_Get us out of here!_"

"Will you be quiet?" The Doctor hushed, turning back to her both in frustration and urgency.

"I WILL BE AS LOUD AS I DARN WELL WANT!" Rille hollered at the top of her lungs, her patience with the Doctor having finally run out entirely.

"Shhh!" the Doctor repeated urgently, waving his hoof at Rille to be silent while several of the occupants in the cage with Rille quickly slapped their own hooves over the unicorn's mouth, realizing her error.

But it was already too late. Rille's shout drew the attention of the many Cyberponies filling the room, and soon the room was occupied with the new noise of them stomping towards the cages to investigate and to deal with any threats.

"Oh brilliant, _now_ look what you've done!" the Doctor exclaimed, running short on patience himself. "You might as well just hand yourself over to them on a silver platter now!"

Rille shot the Doctor a glare, but for her credit, she remained silent and looked extremely guilty, aware now of what it was she had mistakenly done.

"Delete!" the Cyberponies chorused as they arrived at the cages and the closest moved to encircle Rainbow and the Doctor, the two ponies who were free and able to move about. "Delete, delete, delete!"

"Oh no you don't, there will be no deleting, thank you very much!" the Doctor responded to the Cyberponies, quickly pushing Rainbow protectively behind him and moving to put himself beside a nearby machine that sat next to the cages. "Want to know why? Well, you know what this little beauty is, right?" he poked a hoof at the machine. "A scintillating power distributor and convertor, right? Now, do you also know what this is?" he pulled out his sonic screwdriver from behind his ear and held it between two hooves. "A sonic screwdriver! And you know what happens when you use a sonic screwdriver on a scintillating power distributor and convertor, right?" He pointed the sonic at the machine threateningly.

Apparently the entity _did_ know what would happen, because the Cyberponies started to move urgently towards the Doctor to stop him.

"Ah, ah, ah!" The Doctor said warningly. "Keep back, or I'll use this handy-dandy sonic screwdriver to cause a chain reaction in this beauty of a scintillating power distributor and convertor that will blow us _all_ to kingdom come!"

Rille, upon hearing this, rushed forward to intervene. "Don't listen to him!" she exclaimed at the Cyberponies, well aware of the fact that she was siding with the foes, but she didn't trust the Doctor and didn't want to take the risk to see if he was bluffing or not. "He's completely _mad_!"

"Oh yes!" the Doctor agreed without hesitation. "I'm completely mad! Unstable enough that who _knows_ what might push me over the edge!"

"You better listen to what he says!" Rainbow spoke up, coming to the Doctor's support. "I don't know what else he might be capable of doing if you push him too far!"

The Cyberponies hesitated for a moment, so to speed them along, the Doctor jabbed the sonic screwdriver threateningly at the machine again. Alarmed, the Cyberponies quickly backed up a pace.

The Doctor grinned approvingly. "I see that I have your attention, now!" he said. "All right then, I have a request I'd like fulfilled! _Direct_ audience with the cyber-entity in charge of all of this!" he directed his attention towards the central column in the room. "I want to have _words_ with you, you hear me? We've got a lot to talk about!"

There was a long pause, and then a spotlight on the column switched on and shone down on the Doctor. The column then made a long series of loud electronic squeaks, shrieks, and beeping. The ponies all winced at the cacophonous sounds except for the Doctor, who listened intently at the sounds, clearly meaning something to him.

"That's better," the Doctor remarked once the noises had stopped. "Now, I'm the Doctor, and I want to help, but first, I need you to leave these ponies alone. I know you don't trust them, but if you don't hurt them, they won't hurt you." He paused to shoot a glance at Rille. "And even if they try anyway, I won't let them."

The entity squeaked out a new response.

"I understand your predicament," the Doctor answered. "I know you want to go home, but if you do it this way, you'll end up killing these ponies unnecessarily, and we don't need that. I'm sure we can figure out another way to get you back where you belong."

The entity apparently didn't like that because it hissed out a new response that made it sound like it wasn't happy.

"Oh, don't give me that!" the Doctor argued. "I'm sure we can find another solution that will keep everyone happy, so long as you're willing to _cooperate_. So what do you say?"

The entity didn't provide an answer for a long while.

"Well?" the Doctor prompted.

It was then that the electronics surrounding Rille's cage suddenly switched on with an ominous hum and every unicorn within suddenly cried out in agony, magical auras flashing brightly and unhealthily around their horns as the mystical energy started to be drained out of them.

"No, no, no, NO!" the Doctor exclaimed as he turned his attention away from the entity and the machine he was threatening to blow as both he and Rainbow sought a way to save the unicorns.

They barely got a chance to take even a step before the Cyberponies spurred into action again and sprang forward, two of them grabbing both ponies in their hooves. Both naturally tried to resist, but their Cyberpony captors released an electrical surge through their hooves and into their captives. Rainbow immediately jerked as her muscles began to spasm, then fell limp and was allowed to fall to the floor in a heap. The Doctor, however, jerked from his shock but in an entirely different way.

"Hey, hey!" he laughed despite himself and the grave situation. "That tickles!"

The shock ended as quickly as it began, giving the Doctor the chance to deal a blow to the Cyberpony restraining him by bucking it hard in the chest, forcing himself free of its hooves. That done, he immediately dove for the sonic screwdriver he had dropped and, gripping it tightly in his mouth, pointed it anxiously at the wires surrounding Rille's cage. Almost immediately, the wire began to spark and sever as the sonic wreaked havoc with them. Soon the power to the draining device was cut and promptly shut off again. The unicorns immediately dropped down to the floor the moment the draining process ceased, but were all soon stirring and picking themselves up again, showing that they had not yet been seriously harmed.

The Cyberponies started for the Doctor again, but he spun around on them and pointed his sonic screwdriver threateningly at them. Even though it could do far less to harm them, the menacing motion was enough to cause the Cyberponies to halt and keep their distance. Looking very unhappy, the Doctor first went to Rainbow Dash lying on the floor and made sure the pegasus was all right. She was, just unconscious. That done, the Doctor looked back at the column containing the entity, glaring at the spotlight it was still shining down on him.

"Using a Cyberman electronic attack at partial power to try and stun me into submission while quickly trying carry out your plans before I can stop you?" he asked darkly. "Cute, but you're going to have to try a _little_ harder to take down a Time Lord."

The entity weakly beeped out a tentative response, as if defending itself. If so, the Doctor ignored it.

"By the way, that was a very _bad_ choice you just made there, acting like you did," he growled, continuing. "Because you just harmed some very innocent ponies that have done next to _nothing_ to _really_ harm you, and more importantly, you've hurt my _friend_." He pointed at Rainbow Dash. "And now you've made me _very_ angry. And, if you'll excuse the cliché, you won't like me when I'm angry."

The entity bleeped again, sounding almost frightened now.

The Doctor's scowl lightened some at this. "Yes, I understand," he assured the entity. "You want to go home. I know the feeling, like you wouldn't believe. But unlike me, you've still got more than ample chance to do so, so don't throw it away making stupid mistakes. I want to help you, but in order to do so, you _have_ to play by my rules, and _let_ me help you."

The entity squeaked questioningly at the Doctor.

"There are other ways to get the power you need to solve your problem," the Doctor pointed out, and then motioned to the robotic ponies still idly surrounding him. "These Cyberponies, for example. Seeing that they're robotic replicas, you had to give them each individual power sources in order to operate so convincingly, with each one no doubt containing a tidy sum of power. Hook them all together into one, and the combined power that gives you would get you quite closer to achieving your goals. Then there's your beautiful scintillating power distributor and convertor." He patted the device in question with one hoof. "That right there can provide quite a bit of power too, if tweaked here and there in the right ways, which I, of course, know how to do. Throw that in with your stash of power, and you're that much closer too."

The entity scratched out a protest to this.

"No, you're right," the Doctor agreed, "that _isn't_ enough power to launch your spaceship, but you might not even _need_ the spaceship at all." He started over to a nearby terminal. "If I may ask, can you show me just where it is exactly you need to get to on this terminal here?"

The entity beeped in response, and brought up the necessary star charts on the terminal. The Doctor looked them over quickly. He grinned. "Oh, that's just a couple light years from here!" he remarked brightly. "Well, that makes this easy!" he looked back into the entity's spotlight. "Now can you show me the spaceship you're building?"

The entity beeped again, and in the back of the room, another spotlight switched on, revealing a large pod-like craft sitting there, built from the same mish-mash of technology as everything else in the room, previously hidden in the darkness.

"Oh, very nice!" the Doctor commented, galloping over to look it over, then turned to a connecting terminal and examining the readouts for the ship it displayed. "Now see, according to this, you've got about thirty-seven percent of the energy you need to power this ship. If you throw in the combined power you'd get from the Cyberponies and the power distributor and converter, that'd give you another forty percent, so that'd put it in around…say…seventy-five percent of the power you need. That's pretty darn good, if you don't mind me saying."

The entity beeped out a comment on this.

"You're right, that's _still_ not enough power for the spaceship," the Doctor agreed, stepping back to the cages. "It's either the full one hundred percent or nothing. But that's just it! You're very smart and have a lot of wonderful archived information at your disposal. But you don't stop to think things through. You just act upon the first plan that comes to mind, regardless of whether or not it's actually a good plan. If you hadn't done that, and had actually stopped to take the time to actually _consider_ your options, you would have seen that there's a _better_ way to get back home. I've met entities like you before. You don't _actually_ need the physical spaceship at all. That's just for convenience's sake, and for the ability to be able to travel in something _other_ than a straight line. No, you entity types are just data and energy. And like any data and energy, it can be just transmitted from location to location like a radio signal, assuming you have enough power for the transmission. And _you_, have enough power with that seventy-five percent of energy." The Doctor grinned. "You never needed the spaceship. You just needed a means of transmitting yourself back home and into the hands of your fellow entities, where they can help you go from there." He pointed at the entity. "That way you can get home," he pointed over at the cages and the occupants still within, silently watching all of this, "and the lives of these wonderful ladies and gentlemen…"

"Mares and gentlecolts!" a pony in one of the cages corrected suddenly.

"Whatever!" the Doctor responded. "Anyway, their lives are spared." He threw out his hooves in victory. "Everyone wins!"

The entity blooped hopefully.

"Oh yes, I can _easily_ help you make it happen," the Doctor promised. "But I have a condition that must be met, and that's you let those ponies go free and unharmed here and now. Obviously, if we do this my way, you don't need them anyway. And I promise they will do no harm to you." He glanced at Rille. "Am I right, Miss Rille?"

Rille looked at him for a moment. She still hadn't cooled down entirely from earlier, and the fact that now both her head and horn ached from the entity's attempts to drain her supply of magical energy didn't help. She did not trust this entity either, especially given what trickery it had already tried to do. But even she could see that the Doctor's plan was the closest they had to solving this matter, and peacefully too.

"You have my word," she promised.

The Doctor grinned. "There you go!" he said to the entity. "So what do you say?"

The entity was quiet for a moment. Then, with a thump and a hiss, both cages sprang open, permitting the ponies within to exit with cheers of happiness.

The Doctor's grin grew. "Very good," he said to the entity. "Shall we get a move on with it, then?"

The entity let out an excited sounding squeal.

* * *

While the freed ponies stood to one side and watched, helping where necessary, the Doctor and the entity all worked to hook up each and every one of the Cyberponies in the entity's control (including the guards that had been stationed at the TARDIS in the other room), as well as the power supplies of the spaceship and the scintillating power distributor and convertor, properly modified by the Doctor as requested, to the central column that contained the entity itself. Soon a whole mess of cables were strewn everywhere as so many things were repurposed for this one task. But it all came together very quickly, and soon all that remained was the single throw of a switch.

The Doctor grinned, imagining what words of praise Rainbow would be saying to all of this. Unfortunately, he had to imagine it, because the poor mare was still out cold from the electric shock she had received.

In fact, she'd probably be disappointed to know that she was about to miss all of this.

But still.

"All right," the Doctor said after giving the power connections one last look over with his sonic screwdriver. "We're ready." He turned to the entity. "Are you?"

The entity responded that it did.

"All right then," he said, and put his hooves on the switch before turning to the ponies watching. "Now, what this will do is channel all of this power into this central column, and then use it like a huge radio antenna to literally broadcast the entity back out into space and to its home. There might be a few things sparking about, but don't worry about it, that's to be expected. Everyone understand?"

Several of the ponies shook their heads no.

"Good," the Doctor said, taking that as a yes anyway. "Let's get a move on, then!"

He threw the switch. Immediately several things started to spark, but the hum of power being transferred successfully was unmistakable. The many lights on the central column began to glow brighter and brighter as more and more power was transferred into it.

The entity suddenly squeaked out a new response.

The Doctor grinned. "You're welcome."

The column was then suddenly awash with electrical energy which then gathered together before racing up the length of the column and into the ceiling, the column then falling dark.

* * *

From outside the castle, the entity's departure looked like a ball of light suddenly hurling itself up into the night sky from somewhere behind the royal castle in Canterlot. It looked almost like a reverse shooting star, with the star falling up into space instead of down to Equestria. The event was witnessed by several night-going ponies, but while it was undeniably an impressive sight, most didn't give the event a second thought.

Except for one pony, who knew that the sight did not belong in her sky.

* * *

Once the column went dark and all of the machines wound down, everypony started to look around questioningly while the Doctor checked a few final things over.

"Is…that it?" Rille asked slowly. "Did it work?"

The Doctor turned to her and nodded. "It most certainly did. The entity has gone back home where it belongs. It's no longer going to be in your hair. Or mane, as it were." He looked past Rille and at where a certain sky-blue mare was starting to stir. "Now if you'll excuse me for a moment…"

He headed over to Rainbow Dash where she still lay on the floor and gently nudged her. "Hey, Miss Dash," he prompted. "Are you going to wake up?"

Rainbow groaned, squeezing her eyes tighter before groggily opening them up and looking around. "Doc," she remarked, seeing the familiar stallion hovering over her. "Ow. My head hurts."

"Electronic shocks like that tend to do that," the Doctor remarked with a grin, pleased to see she was alright. "You're lucky it was only charged to stun. But that said you'll be right as rain again in a little bit."

"Oh, good," Rainbow mumbled, then sat up and gazed around the room, noting that things were arranged differently than she had last seen it, and the ponies that had previously been locked in cages were now gathering around her curiously. "Did…I miss something?"

"Only me being brilliant, kicking some metallic flank, saving everyone, and getting that entity back home safely," the Doctor replied proudly.

"Aw, did I miss all that?" Rainbow wined in dismay. "Nuts!"

The Doctor merely laughed. "Good to see you're no worse for wear, Miss Dash," he commented.

Rainbow grinned a little herself, but it fell just as quickly as she realized something else. "What's that noise?" she asked.

The Doctor looked up, noting the whining noise that had started to grow in volume in the past few minutes. He traced it to the central column. "Oh, that's just the supercomputer the entity was living in discharging the excess energy. It'll be fine so long as the safety discharge circuit doesn't…"

Something sparked violently on the central column, causing a few ponies to jump in surprise. The whine it was producing started to increase higher in volume and pitch.

The Doctor frowned. "…burn out," he finished.

"Aw hay," Rainbow muttered as she realized what this was leading to. "It's going to blow up, isn't it Doc?"

"Yeah and probably collapse this whole room in the process," the Doctor admitted anxiously, rubbing the back of his head with one hoof.

"Oh _joy_," Rille remarked aloud, overhearing, as well as a few other ponies that started to panic at this news.

"Okay, I'm up, I'm up," Rainbow said, woozily getting to her hooves.

"Are you sure?" the Doctor asked. "I'm sure we've still got a few moments…"

"No, no, I'm good," Rainbow assured him, shaking herself briefly.

"Oh, well, in that case…" the Doctor turned to everypony else. "RUN!"

With the column was beginning to spark more frequently, and the whole room was starting to shake as the power overload increased, nopony needed to be told twice, all making a mad dash for the door. The Doctor arrived there first, making sure everypony got through the door and back in the right direction down the hallway and back into the room that contained the TARDIS. Soon he was the last one left in the room. He gave the room one last look over as the equipment with in continued to spark and self-destruct, the wall crack and crumble, and the leftover Cyberponies burning out and falling over one by one, before make a mad dash down the hallway for safety. He had just made it back into the next room with the others when the explosion finally came and a wall of fire burst briefly through the doorway just seconds after the brown stallion, knocking him off his hooves and to the floor. The loud roar of the hallway collapsing soon followed, the collapse stopping right at the entrance into the door.

A long silence fell as everypony gazed back at the debris-filled doorway.

"Is everyone all right?" the Doctor called as he got up. "Everyone got out okay?"

There were some murmurs and nods of confirmation.

"Cut it kind of close nonetheless," Rille griped.

"Oh be quiet," the Doctor grumbled back at her, dusting himself off. "I couldn't have predicted that the safety discharge circuit would fail like that anymore than you could have."

"I don't even know what that _is_," Rille protested.

"Case and point," the Doctor stated, ending the discussion as he moved to the other doorway leading out of the little room. "Right, now attention everyone, through this door is the staircase that will lead you back up to the castle. Everything should still be left as you found it and intact. No one probably even realized what has transpired down here, so…" he shrugged, leaving the statement unfinished. "Anyway, glad to see everyone got out of this okay, and I hope the rest of your evening ends much better than it began. Thank you."

He then motioned to the door. The other ponies glanced at each other, the wordlessly started to head on through the door and up the stairs beyond.

Rille pulled the Doctor aside. "Wait, so that's it?" she asked. "We just go back up there and pretend it all didn't happen?"

"Well, that's entirely your choice, I suppose," the Doctor pointed out. "But even if you were to try and tell other ponies, I'm sure the princess will stop you."

"The princess?" Rille repeated, then shook her head. "You know, I'm still tempted to arrest you both and make you both answer some questions I'd like answered anyway."

"Exactly why I don't intend to stick around for that," the Doctor said, moving towards where the TARDIS silently stood, having been left completely unbothered during this whole series of events. "I never really liked doing question and answer sessions."

"Besides," Rainbow added with a knowing grin as she moved to the TARDIS as well, "the Doc's never been good about giving straight answers like that, and even when he does, it only brings up more questions. Eventually you just learn that it's better not to ask."

"It's a talent," the Doctor remarked proudly.

Rille frowned at the pair. "So…what…you're just going to climb into the box and disappear?" she asked, not being entirely serious.

"That's _exactly_ what we're going to do," the Doctor assured her, opening the door to the blue box in question. "You first, Miss Dash?"

"Thanks Doc," Rainbow said with a nod as she started to step inside.

"But…" Rille began, "how can you both even _fit_ in there?"

"Oh, it's bigger on the inside," Rainbow said, poking her head back out of the box long enough to give the answer before retreating back inside.

This only further confused Rille. "_What_?"

The Doctor cleared his throat and changed the subject. "So, I guess this is goodbye," he said. "I'd say it was a pleasure but…it really kind of…_wasn't_…in your case."

Rille frowned. "The understatement of the century," she grumbled, but then gazed back at the Doctor with a somewhat softer expression. "Still…I suppose I…_do_…owe you…_a_ thank you."

"You're welcome," the Doctor said.

"Now I hope I'll never see your face again," Rille continued.

The Doctor smirked. "Likewise," he replied. "Though if it makes you feel any better…I _do_ know that that there is one pony that I can almost absolutely guarantee saw that entity leaving, so that'll be your big chance to tell all if you _really_ want to so badly. Though I should warn you now that it'll probably _not_ go the way you hope."

"I'll keep that in mind," Rille responded, and otherwise dismissed the comment.

"Anyway," the Doctor continued, proceeding to enter the box himself, "I'm off. Tell Luna I said hi for me."

"Luna?"

But the Doctor didn't stick around to comment further, ducking into the box and closing the door behind him. Rille was just in the middle of deciding whether or not she wanted to try and go after him and demand a better explanation from him when a light on the box started to flash, and the box itself began to produce a strange whirring noise before, right before Rille's eyes, it faded away from sight and was gone, like it was never there in the first place.

Rille found herself gaping at the spot the box had stood at, realizing the Doctor had done exactly what he said he would; climb into a box and then disappear. "Next time I'm keeping my mouth shut," she muttered under her breath as she turned to leave.

She proceeded to head on up the stairs leading back up to the castle, only to find that everypony that had gone before her had stopped at the entrance leading into the castle itself, blocked by a taller, intimidating-looking blue alicorn.

"Princess Luna!" Rille exclaimed in surprise.

"Sub-Lieutenant Grey Rille," the alicorn greeted firmly, motioning for the unicorn to come forward. "Perhaps thou can explain what has transpired here tonight, and why thou art _all_ absent from thine respective posts."

Rille made a little wince as she approached the alicorn and bowed quickly. "Well, your highness…" she began, only to realize that she didn't really know where to begin. "It's like this. There were these freaky metal ponies that came bursting in here and attacking…"

"Does thou meanest like these here?" Luna asked, and pointed a hoof behind her where two other members of the Night Guards, no doubt pulled from their posts in a different location in the castle, were pushing a cart on which a group of damaged Cyberponies piled onto it. "We didst find them lying in the hallway."

Rille glanced at them then nodded with a sigh. "Yeah, like those," she said, then pressed on. "Anyway, they caught us all and locked us up in a cage. Then this weird brown stallion turns up spouting on about spaceships and stuff…"

"Thou meanest the Doctor?"

The question was so sudden that Rille almost missed it. Even then, it took Rille a second longer to realize what it meant and to put two with two. _She already knows_, she thought to herself, and then mentally slapped herself, thinking that _of course_ that would be the case. "I'm…starting to suspect that I don't…_really_…need to tell you the rest."

"Thou do not," Luna assured her. It was clear on her face that she had already figured out the rest of the general details of the story.

"Okay," Rille said slowly, her spirits fading slightly, and then she remembered something else that didn't help with the feeling that she was caught in the middle of some cruel trick. "He…says hi, by the way."

"A pity we were not able to meet with him before he doth departed."

Rille finally decided she had to ask. "I…take it you two have met before."

The princess merely grinned knowingly and didn't answer. She turned to address the gathering on a whole. "While we art sure that thou all have been through a fair ordeal tonight, we art afraid that we must ask thou all to keep whatever it is thou might have seen tonight a secret, and that word of this incident is not to leave thyselves or the royal family to another without the explicit _and personal_ permission of the royal family, at the order of Princess Celestia herself. Is this understood?"

There was some general nodding from all present.

"Very well then," Luna concluded pleasantly. "We bid thee all a pleasant evening."

She then departed. A few moments later, shaking off the peculiarity of the whole night, everypony else proceeded to do likewise, most just glad the whole ordeal was over. Rille eventually sighed and decided to do likewise, seeing that there wasn't anything else she could do about it tonight, and she had been left exhausted from this mess anyway. Fortunately for her, her bedchambers were not far from here, and she proceeded towards them.

…only to find that in the space of time she had been away from her bedchambers tonight, the room had been ransacked and left in a complete mess, with some sort of strange contraption sitting in front of her door, the lock on which was broken. She took a few steps into the room, only to end up stepping on a peeled banana that had for some reason been left on the floor, the fruit squishing uncomfortably under her hoof.

Rille frowned, but it didn't take her long to figure out who was responsible. "If I _ever_ see that brown stallion again," she bemoaned aloud, "it'll be too soon."

* * *

"So…where to now, Doc?" Rainbow asked as she watched the Doctor dance around the circular control panel of the TARDIS, flipping switches and pressing buttons as he operated her with practiced skill.

"Oh, we could go anywhere, Miss Dash!" the Doctor pointed out brightly. "We could go and see World Party II, or land on a planet full of muffins!" he grinned as he paused to look at her. "It's a big universe, you know."

"I _do_ know," Rainbow agreed. She waved her hoof at the control panel vaguely. "But…I'm never going to be able to pick just _one_ place, so…let's pick one at random again."

The Doctor grinned. "Excellent choice," he said. He turned and entered in a destination at random and flipped a lever. "Let's get a move on, then."


End file.
